


Prom Night

by wheel_pen



Series: Darkwood Eastport [21]
Category: Lie to Me (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Fish out of Water, Magic, Polygamy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-28
Updated: 2015-03-28
Packaged: 2018-03-20 02:28:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3633321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheel_pen/pseuds/wheel_pen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alice Orange Light, Mike Newton, and other local teens get in trouble with Sheriff Burke on prom night for breaking curfew and underage drinking. Alice’s father is not happy with her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prom Night

**Author's Note:**

> The bad words are censored; that’s just how I do things. I own nothing and appreciate the chance to play in this universe. I’ve given a lot of thought to the Darkwood culture, so if something seems confusing, feel free to ask. I hope you enjoy!

The woman was the one doing all the talking. But it was the man Sheriff Burke kept an eye on, as he sat silently in the beat-up wooden chair, tightly coiled beneath his expensive, rumpled suit, eyes flitting around the room. The sheriff had encountered many a snake on his fishing trips, and that was how they looked before they struck.

“But I don’t understand, Sheriff,” the woman repeated. She was reasonably calm, making a visible effort to be, so maybe she really _didn’t_ understand. Probably they didn’t do this kind of thing where she was from. Wherever that was. “They were supposed to go to the dance, then to the bowling alley for the party afterwards. Why would they just take off in a car and drive into the woods?”

“It’s just something the kids around here like to get up to, ma’am,” he tried to tell her, in what he meant as a reassuring but not condescending way. “Kids everywhere. Er, a lot of places.” Her look suggested she found this difficult to comprehend. Her husband’s look suggested he believed it thoroughly, and wanted to kill someone for it. “You know, they’re with their buddies, it’s late at night, they’ve got this freedom they usually don’t have, they start feeling reckless.”

“Reckless?” the woman repeated, as though she felt Sheriff Burke were understating the case. “They’re breaking the law!”

Usually the sheriff found himself trying to convince lackadaisical parents that their children were in real trouble. At the moment, he felt compelled to do the opposite. “Well, your daughter’s not the only one breaking curfew, Dr. Orange Light,” he began.

“Dr. Gillian,” she corrected absently.

Right, right, he knew that. Her husband—her first husband—her head husband?—who sat so still and tense beside her, _he_ was Dr. Orange Light. The others were Dr. First Name. “Your daughter’s not the only one,” he repeated. “We get a handful every year at Prom. So far all they’ve done is break curfew and make a little noise. As long as they don’t cause any property damage or give us any trouble when we flag them down, we won’t charge them with anything.”

Her husband made a noise and shifted in his chair, as if he wanted the book thrown at his daughter. The sheriff could understand his feelings—the Darkwood clans had worked hard to fit into the community since they’d arrived a year ago, to become valuable and upstanding citizens. This was the first time any of their kids—and there were a lot of kids—had given Sheriff Burke any trouble, and it had to be humiliating for the parents. It was how he’d feel if his own Emma—the sheriff’s daughter!—got into trouble. Although this was hardly what he would call _real_ trouble, especially on prom night. He wouldn’t have even pursued the broken curfew if Widow McPhee hadn’t called to complain about the honking car joyriding past her place.

“Where are the other parents?” Dr. Gillian asked curiously. “Those of Alice’s… friends.” Another noise from the man, which clearly meant he didn’t want them to be her friends any longer.

“Waiting at home,” the sheriff shrugged. “You could’ve stayed home, too, we would’ve brought her to you. It’s a small island.” Although it seemed to be taking forever for Floyd to bring the kids back here, Burke thought, increasingly uncomfortable with Dr. Orange Light’s presence. The sheriff wasn’t a man who became flustered in uncomfortable situations, though. Instead he kept a watchful eye on the other man, not bothering to look away when eye contact was made. Dr. Orange Light was supposed to be adept at reading body language—Burke hoped he got the message that no… _outbursts_ would be tolerated in the sheriff’s presence. He also made a mental note to check up on the family in a couple days. Just in case.

Headlights flashed in the window and Burke stood, relieved. “That’ll be Floyd,” he announced, heading for the door. “Looks like the kids were able to drive themselves in. That’s a good sign.”

“What do you mean?” Dr. Gillian asked, following him. Her husband trailed behind, at a short distance.

Fortunately Burke was spared from answering by Floyd getting out of the squad car. “Sheriff,” he greeted. “Doctors.” Dr. Gillian bobbed her head in response, but her husband gave only a curt nod. The shame-faced teenagers were slowly climbing out of their car, but Burke kept his eye on Dr. Orange Light. His daughter, Alice, was the last one to appear, her lovely face etched with guilt and apprehension. “Found this on them,” Floyd tutted, pulling a half-consumed six-pack of beer out of his trunk, “but Mike Newton there was driving, and he’s stone cold sober.”

Burke gave the Newton boy a chastising look—not for being a sober driver, because buzzed driving would have kicked this up to a whole other level—but just for being on the sheriff’s doorstep yet again. Some kids had too much energy for a small town.

“They were drinking _alcohol_?” Dr. Gillian asked, her tone just short of horror. Burke had forgotten, momentarily, that the Darkwood folks didn’t drink at _all_. He decided to spare their daughter his usual lecture—she looked like she was about to burst into tears anyway.

“You folks can take Alice on home,” he told the Orange Lights, hoping to distract the head of the clan from boring a hole through Mike Newton with his gaze—the young man had the misfortune of being Alice’s date for the evening.

“Come on, Alice,” Dr. Gillian summoned, putting an arm around the girl. “Thank you, Sheriff.” The two of them started to walk back towards Dr. Orange Light, who gave his daughter a brief, icy gaze before abruptly turning his back on her.

Yep, he was definitely going to check on them later, Burke decided, as Alice started crying in earnest. Mike, decent if bone-headed, made a slight yearning move in her direction, but the sheriff stopped him with a hand on his shoulder and a quick shake of the head. A fight _would_ break out if Dr. Orange Light saw him trying to talk to Alice, of that Burke was certain. Over by their car, the doctor said something short to his wife, in their native language, and tossed her the car keys. He _must_ be upset if he was allowing her to drive him, Burke thought—the Darkwood ladies drove, yes, but if there was a husband or licensed son in the group, the job always defaulted to him. Well, maybe it showed that the doctor still had _some_ amount of good judgment left, to know he shouldn’t drive.

Dr. Orange Light threw himself into the front passenger seat of the car, slamming it behind him—and leaving both wife and daughter to get their own doors. Burke wasn’t one hundred percent sure on the subtleties of Darkwood etiquette—maybe the driver always got their own door, no matter their gender—but to leave his daughter standing beside the car like that, that was like a slap in the face. Even Dr. Gillian looked slightly shocked. Alice could barely even work her door to get in, she was so upset.

Finally they drove off and Sheriff Burke turned back to the others sternly. “Underage drinking is a very serious offense…” he began to lecture.

**

A couple days later Sheriff Burke drove the short distance to Redoubt Hill at the center of the island. A couple of the clans had purchased lots in the woods around here, including Orange Light—they offered plenty of privacy but were only a few miles away from the town proper. After a few minutes Burke turned down a gravel lane and was stopped by a gate; the fence it was attached to disappeared into the trees on either side. There was no buzzer or intercom, but he wasn’t worried—he had been here before and any second now—

A uniformed servant appeared at his car window, walking up just in the opposite direction from where Burke was looking. They always managed to do that, somehow. “Can I help you, Sheriff?” the man asked politely.

Normally Burke was good with faces, but the Darkwood servants, on the whole, always gave the impression of being vaguely familiar, yet interchangeable. He wondered what the interview process for that job was like. “Is Dr. Orange Light home?”

“Doctors Calvin and Gillian Orange Light are currently at the Darkwood Clinic,” the man replied formally. “However, Doctors Eli and Ria Orange Light are at home.”

Burke waited patiently until the speech was done. He hadn’t necessarily wanted to speak to the head of the clan anyway. “Okay. Can I go up to the house and talk to them?”

There was a pause, as if the servant were listening to instructions. Maybe he had one of those radio transmitters hidden in his ear. “Of course, Sheriff,” he answered. “I’ll get the gate for you.”

Moments later Burke was continuing down the lane deeper into the forest. Each clan had bought lots of several acres, the better to spread out and give plenty of room for their large families. The house, when Burke finally reached it, didn’t look all that different from your typical New England farmhouse fading into the trees—until you realized that all the house-like glimpses you’d been getting through the woods all the way there were actually part of the same massive structure. Well, some people had ridiculously large houses just for two or four people; at least the Darkwood clans really filled their homes up.

Burke parked in the driveway and climbed the steps to the front porch, waving at a couple of curious, playing children. Another servant met him at the front door. “If you’ll just follow me, Sheriff.”

The interior of the house was also typical for the area, lots of white with blue and green and a vague nautical theme, except it went on far longer than a typical house would. More children ran giggling through the halls, with the occasional servant catching a tipped chair or dusting a surface. “Excuse me, Lord Eli,” the man leading Burke began as they reached the doorway to a large tiled room, “but Sheriff Burke is here to see you.”

Burke wasn’t sure what this room was supposed to be. But currently it held a number of video cameras on tripods, which were all fixed at various angles on a baby who sat in the center of the floor—surrounded by bowls of food. The sheriff raised an eyebrow.

“Sheriff Burke! Do you like stewed plums?” A thirtyish man with dark curly hair and a bit of scruffy stubble popped up as suddenly as one of the servants.

“Uh—I’ve never tried them, personally,” the sheriff was forced to admit, with hesitation.

The other man, he noticed, was holding a jar of baby food—and occasionally spooning some of it into his own mouth. “I find them bland, yet strangely compelling,” he shared, looking thoughtful. “Oh, we’re doing an experiment to test George’s response to various flavors of baby food,” he added quickly, seeing Burke’s expression. “We’re trying to determine if we ought to feed him this commercially-made product.”

“Don’t say his name,” a woman in the corner interrupted in an even tone. Burke hadn’t even noticed her. She was peering intently at the baby, a clipboard in her hand. “You’ll distract him.”

“Right, sorry.”

“What did you feed him _before_?” Burke wanted to know.

“Oh, regular food that had been pureed,” the dark-haired man responded eagerly. “Plus vitamin supplements and the nutritive paste.”

“Uh-huh.” The four adults of Orange Light clan—two men and two women—were all psychologists who worked at the Darkwood clinic with the other clan doctors, providing a valuable resource for the community. But they were also, Burke had discovered, a little weird. Then again, ‘weird’ was a pretty subjective term when used with the Darkwood clans.

Eli—Dr. Eli, Lord Eli—was the younger husband, who seemed friendly enough but had the unsettling habit of being completely honest about everything, such as how someone looked that day or what they probably really meant by the remark they’d just made. Ria, the younger wife who was studying the baby, struck Burke as someone with a troubled past. She had a lot of street smarts and was also not exactly shy about confrontation. She looked like she might be Latina as well, which Burke had never really understood, as most of the Darkwood clan members were white and claimed to come from somewhere in northern Europe, near Scandinavia. But then again, they adopted a lot of kids—George, the baby, looked to be of African origin—so perhaps that was her story.

“So far he seems unusually partial to lima beans, which I don’t understand myself, as I think they’re pretty disgusting,” Eli was saying with enthusiasm. “I wouldn’t even have put them out at all, but Ria said—“

“Eli,” the young woman interrupted. She had been keeping an eye on Burke since his arrival—first quick glances, then longer, more searching ones. Finally she stood, scooped up the baby, and joined her husband in front of Burke. “I don’t think the sheriff is here to talk about baby food.”

“Oh, right, of course,” Eli agreed. “Um… shouldn’t you offer him something to drink?” he prompted, pointedly _not_ switching to their native language.

Ria didn’t seem embarrassed to be called out about her lapse in hospitality. “I don’t think he wants one,” she discerned, frowning at Burke. “Is something wrong, Sheriff?”

_You tell me_ , he thought. “Actually, I just came by to see how things were,” he answered vaguely. “Alice had kind of a rough time the other night.”

“Did she ever!” Eli agreed readily. He didn’t seem particularly upset by the incident. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen Cal so furious! You could have—oh, what’s that great expression—fried an egg on his head!” This was exactly the subject Burke wanted to talk about. But Eli had a tendency to chatter. “Not that I was surprised, because girls who stay out late with boys are usually labeled tramps, and who wants a tramp for a daughter, right? Plus the alcohol! Not that I think Alice is trampy, of course, just not very bright sometimes. She’ll be lucky if she’s let out of her room before the month is up, though!”

Burke finally got a word in. “You folks don’t believe in corporal punishment, do you?” he asked casually.

Eli looked confused. “Corporal? Hmm, I don’t know that word. Is it something to do with the military? Or maybe—“

Ria frowned, understanding the sheriff’s meaning. “I think he wants to know if Cal _hit_ Alice,” she cut in, watching Burke carefully. Her tone was serious—but not surprised.

Eli, for his part, seemed genuinely shocked by the idea. “Wait, _what_?! No, no, that would _never_ —Why would you even _think_ —“

“Well, you _did_ say he was pretty angry about it,” Burke reminded the other man calmly. No need to be accusatory—it wasn’t as if he _really_ thought anything had happened.

“Well, yeah, of course, it’s _humiliating_ , her causing trouble like that, and he was—we were all _worried_ about her,” Eli sputtered. “But no one would ever—We don’t—“

“Cal would never hit any of the children, Sheriff,” Ria told him, and there was a conviction in her eyes that he couldn’t discount. “Or any of us.” _I wouldn’t let him_ , her gaze seemed to add, as a personal guarantee.

Burke nodded, more at her firm reassurance than her husband’s flustered, if genuine, protests. “Alright, ma’am. I was just checking. You two have a good day now.”

“Uh, yeah, thanks, Sheriff,” Eli responded, still shaking off the unsettling conversation. “You, too.”

Burke turned back to them from the doorway. “When my daughter Emma was little, she really liked those pureed carrots,” he offered, and Eli looked up with some interest. “Ate so many of them, she turned orange.”

Eli seemed fascinated by this bit of information. “Orange? Really? Hmm…” Burke nodded, then headed for the door. He figured the story was the least he could do, after suggesting they might be child abusers.

**

It wasn’t too late in the evening when Ria stopped beside Cal’s closed bedroom door. She thought she could see a light on beneath it, but she summoned a servant anyway, just to be sure. “Is Cal alone in his room?” she queried.

“Yes, madame,” the man assured her respectfully. “He has not yet gone to bed.”

“Thanks.” Ria turned towards the door, hand on the knob, then looked back over her shoulder—the servant had utterly disappeared. She wondered if she would ever get used to that. She opened the door quietly and stuck her head around the frame, knocking on the door finally.

Cal was sitting in bed with a pile of papers in his lap. “Doesn’t it make more sense to knock _before_ you open the door?” he commented dryly, not looking up from his work. “Or really, why bother to knock at all, when I’ve been told you were coming in and could have stopped it?”

“Just being illogical, I geuss,” Ria shrugged, walking over to the bed. Not that many years ago she would have taken his remark as criticism and felt the need to defend herself. Actually, he probably _did_ mean it as criticism, but she was learning not to rise to the bait.

And learning to be bolder about taking what she wanted, she thought, as she climbed onto the bed and curled up right next to him. Not that people would generally peg her as someone who had trouble being bold—most would say she need to _curb_ that impulse, in fact. But then again, Cal wasn’t your average person, who reacted in predictable ways. Even now, as she wrapped a hand around his arm and leaned her head on his shoulder, he barely glanced away from his reading. If he had been Eli, or she had been Gillian, the papers would be scattered across the floor and ignored by now.

“More research?” she asked after a moment, mainly to judge his mood.

“Mm-hmm,” he answered, scribbling something in a notebook. She thought that was going to be it as the seconds ticked by silently. “I’ll have to go to the library in Boston again soon,” he added finally.

“Really?”

“Yeah.” Pause. “You want to come?”

He wasn’t looking at her, and his tone suggested that he couldn’t care less. But Ria was excited anyway. “Really? Can I? I would love to! I could _really_ help you with your research.” She added that last bit in the hopes of forestalling his suggestion that she could merely go shopping on the trip.

He gave her a quick sideways glance. “Right, then.”

Usually Cal only took Gillian on his out-of-town trips, or sometimes Eli. But now that Ria had been deemed worthy of it, she decided to go back to possibly being too bold—although she realized it might cost her that privilege. “Have you spoke to Alice today?”

She felt his muscles tense under her hand. “No.”

“Well, when are you going to?”

“If that’s what you came in here to talk about,” he said flatly, underlining something on a page, “you can get out.”

Well, that _was_ what she had come to talk about, but she had no intention of leaving just yet. Or before morning, really. Ria let a few minutes go by, until Cal relaxed a bit and became absorbed in his reading again. She had thought Cal was too reserved at first—clinical, cold almost. Of course, at the very first, it _was_ a clinical setting, as she was his patient. But she had since learned that though he might not show his feelings easily, they ran deep inside him, and they were all the more meaningful because he only revealed them on occasion. Not that there was necessarily anything wrong with people who were naturally more affectionate, like Eli—it made things so much easier, to know someone would open his arms to you without games or judgments.

On the other hand, Ria could never resist a challenge. And winning an open display of affection from Cal was the ultimate challenge.

“Sheriff Burke stopped by the house today, while you were at work,” she mentioned casually. She had gotten Eli to agree not to tell anyone until _she_ did.

Cal tensed again. “Are we a hotbed of crime now?” he growled with frustration.

Ria really had no idea how he would react to her next comment. “He wanted to know if you had hit Alice as punishment.”

Cal froze for a long moment. Then he turned to face Ria fully. “He _what_?!”

“We said you hadn’t, of course,” she assured her husband, but she was feeling quite a bit less confident in her plan as Cal became more agitated.

“Well, of _course_ ,” he replied acidly, shifting on the bed. “Thank you so bloody much for telling him the truth!”

“Cal, I—“

He swore, something nasty and untranslatable, and shoved the pile of papers off his lap. Ria winced—that wasn’t exactly how she’d envisioned getting them scattered across the floor. She put her hand on his arm, firmly, to hold him in place—a somewhat dangerous move, like trying to restrain a tiger. “Cal, the sheriff was only doing his job,” she pointed out, trying to sound reasonable. “He just wanted to make sure Alice was alright.”

Cal growled something under his breath, something about what kind of people the sheriff thought they were. “He just wanted to make sure Alice was safe,” Ria repeated. “We’re lucky that he cares so much about the children.”

He heaved a sigh and fell back against the headboard, and Ria knew she’d won him over. Children were of such paramount importance to the Darkwood clans—anyone who truly wanted to protect them had to be respected. Ria leaned back against his shoulder. Cal rarely if ever reached for her the way he did Gillian, so she had learned to reach for _him_.

“I can’t believe he’d think I’d hit her,” he muttered once again, but there was little anger in it now.

“Well, he saw how angry you were,” Ria pointed out.

“Well of _course_ I was angry,” he replied shortly. “Out late at night, after curfew, and drinking alcohol? With _boys_? There’s about fifty horrible things that could’ve happened, without even being statistically improbable.”

“It’s funny how worry can turn into anger, isn’t it?” she said pointedly.

“It’s not funny, it’s a well-documented psychological phenomenon,” he corrected peevishly. He was always peevish when something reminded him that he wasn’t above the instinctive responses he analyzed in others. “And perfectly reasonable when you consider that she didn’t _have_ to make me worry. Her actions were completely unnecessary.”

Sometimes Ria wondered if Cal had completely forgotten what it was like to be young. She recalled plenty of stories about his own youth when he hadn’t exactly been a model of decorum. She supposed he would just say that he expected his children to adhere to higher standards.

“I think we should make sure Alice, and the other children, know that they can talk to us about things, without us getting upset,” Ria said, not entirely off-topic.

“’Things’? What ‘things’?” Cal snapped, already getting upset.

“Well what if Alice knew her friends were talking about breaking curfew—“

“ _And_ drinking!”

“— _and_ drinking, and she wanted to tell us about it,” Ria suggested reasonably, “but she was worried that we would get mad if she even mentioned it?” This was the tone of voice she used with her more obstinate clients, and she had a feeling that wasn’t lost on Cal.

“I would say she had an accurate grasp of the situation,” he replied petulantly.

Ria sighed. “Let me rephrase. Gillian and I should tell her she can come to us, and we won’t get mad.”

“No, she can talk to you and Eli,” Cal countered, but for once he sounded sincere. “Gillian would just tell _me_. And then _I_ would get mad.”

And some people in America thought households with four parents were unnatural. How else would you prevent your daughter’s male friend from being torn limb from limb by an angry father? She would have to ask some of her local friends what _they_ did in situations like this.

Just when Ria was feeling smug about her triumph, Cal managed to puncture it. “ _Emily_ would never have done this,” he muttered.

“Cal!” Ria’s patience went out the window, which was a problem she was still working on. “You _know_ that it is _not_ healthy to compare—“

“I _know_!” he snapped, frustrated. “It’s just d—n difficult! I mean, how often do you raise a perfect child? And on the first try.”

The sad thing was, Cal was being completely serious. There was no blind spot bigger than the one caused by love, Ria thought, rolling her eyes. Though she had a feeling that any child who looked as much like Gillian as Emily did was bound to find favor in her father’s eyes. Alice, unfortunately, more resembled Cal.

“Emily is _not_ perfect,” Ria countered, little good though it would do. She very distinctly remembered the girl having some… _adjustment issues_ when Ria joined the family.

“Well, you have to admit, from about fourteen on up she was pretty much flawless,” Cal conceded, if such a statement could be called a concession. “She _definitely_ would not have been out past curfew drinking with her friends.”

“Yeah, because she wouldn’t have had friends!” Ria pointed out. “She would’ve stayed in the house all day, studying and watching the younger kids.”

Cal blinked at her. “And that’s a problem?”

“Not if that’s what she really wants to do!” Ria tried to explain. “But Alice has a different personality. She’s more outgoing and friendly.”

“Where the h—l did she get _that_ from?” Cal asked sarcastically, but Ria thought she had once again made her point successfully.

“I don’t know,” she agreed, plopping back down beside him. “Grandparent?” Not a paternal one, though, she knew that much from meeting Cal’s parents. They were quiet for a moment, just sitting on the bed. “So are you going to—“

“Alright, fine,” Cal agreed, with ill grace. He moved from the bed so suddenly that Ria nearly lost her balance—probably in a hurry to get it over with before he changed his mind. He paused at the doorway and looked back at her. “File those for me,” he told her, pointing to the pile of papers on the floor. Then he disappeared. Ria wasted no time starting to organize the articles—she did enjoy a challenge after all.

**

Cal, meanwhile, wandered though the darkened house towards the girls’ wing, trying to figure out what he was going to say. Well, spontaneity was usually best in these situations. Nothing worse than your heartfelt speech sounding rehearsed. On the other hand, Cal sometimes spontaneously came out with loaded terms like ‘stupid,’ ‘never,’ and ‘Emily wouldn’t,’ and that _was_ probably worse. He was very tempted to find Gillian and see what she had to say about it all, except that they would likely get distracted. And she had already told him she was spending the night with Eli, so he really shouldn’t interrupt.

If Alice’s room had been any further away, he might have interrupted anyway. He hovered outside the door for a moment, feeling uncertain and slightly ridiculous, before he caved and summoned a servant. “Is Alice in there?” he asked.

“Yes, milord,” the uniformed man answered respectfully.

“Well—“ Cal preferred to avoid entering the domain of teen and pre-teen girls, especially when he was outnumbered four to one. “Tell her to come out here.”

The servant bowed, stepped from Cal’s eyeline, and presumably disappeared. A moment later the bedroom door opened and Alice stepped into the hall, dressed for bed in a t-shirt and pajama pants. Suddenly Cal wondered if she might have been asleep already, but—too late now. She saw him waiting and her eyes immediately dropped, no doubt anticipating the royal chewing-out he’d been stewing over for two days.

Well, he _had_ been stewing over it. Not that kids in the Valley never did anything wrong (except Emily, of course)—it was just that there they were safer, with the servants everywhere to prevent things from going _terribly_ wrong. The island didn’t have that kind of protection. And he knew—both through his training, and just through common sense—that if you didn’t give kids an outlet, if you tried to control them at all times, you were creating a pressure cooker that all but ensured they would last out.

But that was d—n hard to remember when it was _your_ kid out in the dark somewhere, careening about with a group of other kids who were even stupider. When all you wanted was to have her back safely.

Without even thinking about it Cal reached out and pulled the girl into his arms. She melted against him, the tears she’d been holding back during the impenetrable silence finally spilling over. “Daddy,” she squeaked, relief evident in every sound.

“It’s alright, it’s alright,” he soothed her, squeezing her tight. Maybe too tight; she was beginning to hiccup a little. He loosened his hold and pulled back to look at her face, cupping it in his hands. “I was so worried about you,” he told her, which was something he rarely admitted.

“I’m sorry, Daddy,” Alice sniffled, tears sliding down her face onto his hands. “I didn’t think we would be out so late. And then I didn’t know what to say, when I wanted to go home.” Ria could add role-playing to her list of helpful strategies, Cal decided—she would enjoy that. “And I only had one sip of beer! It was really gross. And Mike—“ Cal felt his muscles tense and worked to avoid accidentally crushing her jaw. “—Mike knew I didn’t want to be there and was just about to bring me home when the police stopped us.”

Cal put his arms back around her. “Okay,” he told her simply.

“Okay?” Alice repeated in confusion, laying her head against his chest. Having broken the tension between them, it seemed she was getting some of her spunk back. “Does ‘okay’ mean I’m not grounded anymore?”

“Absolutely not,” Cal assured her. “You are most definitely still grounded. And furthermore,” he added, because it seemed like a good moment, “you’re not to see Mike again—“ A ghostly shape drifted into Cal’s eyeline further down the hall. “—without inviting him for supper,” he finished quickly, only a slight hitch in the words. “Where I can keep a proper eye on him.” Gillian smiled at him approvingly and slipped away again. She always knew just when to appear.

“Okay,” Alice agreed happily. “Thanks, Dad!”

“You’re too happy for someone who’s grounded,” he assessed lightly.

“I’ll be miserable tomorrow,” she assured him, “when I’m working in the garden instead of going into town.” She stretched up to kiss his cheek. “You need to shave.”

“Thanks for the tip. Go to bed,” he ordered, releasing her. She scampered back to her room, where a burst of giggling followed her reappearance. Cal rolled his eyes—the four girls would probably never get to sleep now.

He turned and was about to head back to his own room when he almost collided with someone else in the hall. “Oh, sorry!” Eli apologized cheerfully. “Hey, were you just talking to Alice?”

“Yes, actually,” Cal confirmed. “Why are you lurking about?”

“I’m looking for Gillian,” Eli replied, peering into the shadows behind Cal. “It’s this little game we’re playing.” Cal raised an eyebrow. “That’s what the pudding pops are for, too,” he added, indicating the two wrapped packets he carried. Cal raised his other eyebrow and Eli finally noticed. “I’m guessing you don’t want to hear any more details about that.”

“Yeah,” Cal confirmed shortly. Every clan had their own arrangements for intimate relations, which were definitely not anyone else’s business. Maybe another clan would’ve had regular orgies with all the spouses—and pudding pops, too—but Cal preferred to maintain a little more privacy among pairs. “She went that way.”

“Great, thanks!” Eli enthused, heading off. “Hey, glad you and Alice are cool again!” he called back.

“Go away before those things melt all over the place,” Cal advised.

“That’s the idea!” Eli tossed off, turning the corner. Cal decided he did not really need to know that, either.

Ria was sitting in his bed reading a book he’d left on the nightstand when he returned. There was no longer a pile of papers on the floor. “How did it go?” she asked eagerly, looking up. He merely gave her a speculative glance and headed into his attached office. Ria scrambled to follow him.

“So what happened to those articles?” he asked her, opening a filing cabinet drawer.

She looked mostly confident. “I filed them.”

“Correctly?” His expression was deliberately inscrutable, a look no one did better—when he wasn’t upset, that was. Her jaw twitched a bit—she _hoped_ she’d done it correctly. He had tossed her back to her own bed before when she’d gotten some task or work-related question wrong, and he had no qualms about doing it again. He leafed through one of the folders. “Did you put the study by—why, yes, you did,” he murmured, finding the article right where it was supposed to be. “What about the—ah, here it is.”

Her posture was getting more confident with each correct filing. He caught sight of another paper in the same folder— _not_ where he would have put it. His disappointment at her organizational skills was fairly trivial, though—he couldn’t decide himself half the time how to file things. It was just that if he _told_ her she was wrong, she would expect to be sent away. And Cal really wanted someone to get the image of Eli and Gillian playing hide-and-seek out of his mind.

He snapped the cabinet shut, making Ria jump. “Alice is happy though still grounded, Mike Newton is coming to dinner, and Eli is still obsessed with pudding pops,” he stated flatly. “That is all the family news I have to report.” She looked like she was going to say something approving about Alice, and Cal didn’t really need to hear that. So instead he stepped closer to her. “Have I ever told you how much of a turn-on proper filing is?”


End file.
